Malaysia pwning US imports for now

Just a quicky, to bookmark something I wanna take a closer look at later: a total detailed breakdown of US trade balance for all countries. I haven’t had a chance to take a close look yet, but straightaway you can see that Malaysia is important to the USA, being the 10th most important partner in terms of total trade with the US, and the 5th most important Asian country, 1st South East Asian. Also, the trade balance is about 3 sales to 1 purchase, which is a balance equivalent to Canada’s. In contrast, China’s balance is around 5.6 to 1.

It seems like a handy resource. E.g. if you ever wanted to know how many $ worth of “ventilating or recycling hoods incorporating a fan, having a maximum horizontal side not exceeding 120 cm” Msia sells to the US, click here. No time to take a good look now, so just KIV!

Is another world possible?

Malaysia’s big day is just around the corner! They say nationhood begins at 50, and by they I mean us who wait desperately for the mainstream embrace of the genuine spirit of Bangsa Malaysia, that naive idea that Malaysians would think of each other as “Malaysian First” (TM) and therefore accord each other with a sense of respect and trust deserving of one’s countryman. What we have today is too reprehensible to describe, so I won’t. Is another Malaysia possible?

While it seems like this is a time for introspective self-examination, I find myself wondering how much value there is to such thinking, especially given the nature of the world today? We give lip-service to ideas like Globalisation. But it is introspective thinking that makes us understand that Malaysia is better off today than we were 50 years ago, while if one takes a step back an awesome truth begins to emerge; that in fact, 50 years ago we were arguably one of the best-off countries in Asia, decisively behind only Japan.

Creative commons licensing

I believe the next wave in the effective wielding of the Malaysian socio-political blogosphere is aggregation. Specifically in the Malaysian context, aggregation should go beyond linking to each other’s blogs or reproducing material on certain key “central” blogs as is done in Malaysia-Today.net. An important next step is hardcopy reproduction, in university tabloids and magazines, as well as just plain print-and-photocopy operations. This is especially germane in the run-up to elections.

Most socio-political bloggers would welcome increased coverage for their work, and therefore there is an unspoken consensus that reproducing someone’s material is fine. That’s fine. But I see no reason not to formalise it. Furthermore, formalisation could pre-empt any uncertainty regarding copyright (especially as some blogs are a source of revenue), and also encourage reproduction by those who are generally not that tapped into the Malaysian blogosphere and would therefore not fully understand the culture and norms, e.g. if someone has a sudden awakening 2 weeks before elections. And he has access to a photocopier but needs to cover the cost of toner, and he has a kampung full of eager readers willing to spend oh I don’t know 20 sen for a refreshing read? :)

In the Malaysian context, explicit licensing is probably unnecessary for any of the above reasons (if it were, you think RM10 DVDs would sell so well???), but at the same time… explicit licensing can’t hurt.

With that in mind, I have decided to put my license where my mouth is and release all posts on this site so far and future posts (unless stated otherwise) under the following Creative Commons license:

karya ini dilesen dibawah satu
Lesen Pengiktirafan-Bukan Karya Terbitan 2.5 Malaysia Creative Commons.

Based on a work at thesilo.wordpress.com.